Tag Archives: Video games

The Tech Industry’s War on Kids, by Richard Freed

The tech industry has found how to unlock minds and keep them unlocked…to the tech industry. From Richard Freed at medium.com:

How psychology is being used as a weapon against children

Donald lain Smith/Blend Images/Getty Images

“We called the police because she wrecked her room and hit her mom… all because we took her phone,” Kelly’s father explained. He said that when the police arrived that evening, Kelly was distraught and told an officer that she wanted to kill herself. So an ambulance was called, and the 15-year-old was strapped to a gurney, taken to a psychiatric hospital, and monitored for safety before being released. Days after being hospitalized, Kelly was brought to my office by her parents who wanted to get help for their troubled girl.

Kelly’s parents spoke first. They said that their daughter’s hospitalization was the culmination of a yearlong downward spiral spurred by her phone obsession. Kelly had been refusing to spend time with her family or focus on school. Instead, she favored living her life on social media. A previously happy girl and strong student, Kelly had grown angry, sullen, and was now bringing home report cards with sinking grades. Kelly’s parents had tried many times in prior months to set limits on their daughter’s phone use, but she had become increasingly defiant and deceitful, even sneaking on her phone at all hours of the night.

When Kelly’s latest report card revealed a number of failing grades, her parents felt compelled to act. They told Kelly early in the afternoon on the day the police were called that she would need to turn in her phone by 9 p.m. But when the time came, Kelly refused, and a pushing match ensued between her and her parents, concluding in the violent tantrum that led the girl to be hospitalized.

Continue reading

President Trump To Meet with Video Game Makers Because…FBI Failed To Follow Up on Nikolas Cruz? by Nick Gillespie

There is no known connection between Nikolas Cruz’s murder spree in Florida and video games. So why is President Trump meeting with video game makers? From Nick Gillespie at reason.com:

President Donald Trump is meeting today with video game makers to discuss whether violent entertainment somehow motivated Nikolas Cruz to slaughter 17 innocent people at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Despite the absolute lack of any convincing connection between violent entertainment and real-world violence, Trump has a longstanding belief that the two things are intimately connected. Here he is, in a 2012 tweet, echoing arguments made over the years by Hillary Clinton, Bob Dole, Janet Reno, and others:

Let’s be clear about two things.

First, there is no causal link between playing video games, violent or peaceful, and becoming violent, much less a mass shooter. To wit:

“All we can really say for sure is that there does not appear to be a link at this time between violent video games and school shootings. And if there is a link, it goes in the opposite direction.” [Villanova psychologist Patrick] Markey, co-author of the 2017 book Moral Combat: Why the War on Violent Video Games Is Wrong, reports that only about 20 percent of school shooters play video games, compared with about 70 percent of high school students overall.

“If media violence is a precursor to societal violence the introduction of violent video games in the United States would be expected to precipitate increased youth violence rates.” Yet as violent video game consumption has increased nearly eightfold since 1996, the violence rate among Americans ages 12–17 fell from 35 to 6 per 1,000 people.

To continue reading: President Trump To Meet with Video Game Makers Because…FBI Failed To Follow Up on Nikolas Cruz?